10 years--Gettin' back on the horse!

Well... tomorrow is 'road test day'. The DL office gave me a copy of the sheet that the tester uses to grade, and I've been trying to memorize it...

Funny how I've probably got almost 3/4 million miles under my belt and I'm still nervous about it. Hopefully it's like riding a bike.

 

Well... failed the road test portion! Not too friggin happy about *why* either, but that's all I'll say about it for now. I may retest at the same place now that I know what I'm up against.

 

Lots has happened since my last installment!

After failing the road test portion, I decided maybe I'd try to get a little time in the seat before I went back and tried again. I failed the first time for "loss of control"... in other words, I got it stuck in neutral for a little too long. Then I refused to make I right hand turn that I felt was not safe to do at the time. Presto! End of test.

Time for another approach--I went to a local company, told them I was looking for a job and convinced them to let me use one of their trucks to take a road test with the DPS. It got right down to the wire--the day before the test, ten minutes before the DPS office closed for the day and they backed out on me. The safety director couldn't get anyone to ride over there with me. Well poop! I was counting on getting at least a half hour of seat time in the truck to get used to it beforehand.

Fast forward to today... I just got back from the second road test at the same place I failed previously. This time I passed. Whew!

I only had to do the road test portion this time around since I passed everything else last time. If you've ever heard of 'White Coat Hypertension', I have something similar: Driving Instructor Hypertension--my stress level rises exponentially when someone is sitting in the passenger seat watching my every move and writing it down on a clipboard. Even though it wasn't the same guy doing the test this time, I was still wound up like an eight day clock. My right foot was shaking so bad on the throttle, I thought for sure I was going to fail before we even got out of the lot.

I had a lot riding on this test--I spent my last $100 on it...

[my folks just showed up... time to continue this later]

 

Ok... so where was I?

When I got to Reid, another guy was waiting in his vehicle for 1pm to roll around--it was about 12:30. He said he'd been inside already and met one of the "examiners". I forewarned him that Mr. Examiner had a no nonsense attitude and certainly wasn't much of a conversationalist. He agreed that this was true.

I found out that this guy was also in the same boat I am--ten years out of a truck and now in need of a better job thanks to the economy. But, when I asked him if he was going OTR, he said he was already pre-hired with CRE and was going to lease a truck.

I can't stress enough here... if you have a CDL, DO NOT let it lapse just because you think you'll never drive a truck again--poop happens. It's been a month now, getting my CDL back.

Anyhow... we both went inside at one o'clock to fill out the paperwork. There are two instructors at Reid--I was thankful to get the other guy for my road test this time. He wasn't nearly as intimidating.

With all the paperwork signed, we went out to the truck. He unlocked the doors and handed me the key. I hopped up inside, flipped the hazards and lights on and told him I was gonna check the lights real quick. He replied, "Everything has been checked."

Well ok then... He read off his spiel, I fired her up and off we went. During his pretrip speech, he made sure to impress upon me the fact that if I coasted too long, or had to stop in order to get it back in gear, it was an automatic failure. This was floating in the back of my mind as we were creeping up the hill towards the street at 0.375 miles per hour in 1st gear--I knew I needed to grab another gear... but I was deathly afraid of missing it on the hill before we even got out of the lot. Hell with it--I stabbed the clutch once and shoved the stick forward real quick without clutching it back in--just like butter baby! Woo hoo!

Before we even began, I was playing it out in my head. I'm NOT used to double-clutching, but I knew I would be expected to do it for the test. When we got out on the road, I tried to double-clutch... crunch... crunch... and my foot started to shake. Finally it went in. I decided from that point that I would just rest my foot on the clutch pedal to fake like I was doing it.

I was also unsure how he felt about starting out in a higher gear... and I was kinda afraid to ask. So, I just did it--the first intersection where I had to stop, I slid it into third instead of first... he didn't say anything about it.

[dinner break]

 

The saga continues...

I was more than a little apprehensive when we came to the corner that ended the first test for me. Luck was with me though--no line of school busses and trucks waiting to turn. I downshifted as we came up to the corner and 'round we went. I finally started to mellow out and tried to pretend I was by myself... it worked I think--I was finally able to breathe a little.

The last road we took was a squeaker. It was probably 108" from the edge of the asphalt to the yellow line--designed for failure I'm sure. I watched the tandems kiss the edge of the pavement a couple times. After we got back, I saw that he docked me a few points for that. The final result though--PASS!

I'm sure it won't take me more than a few minutes in a truck, by myself, for it all to come back to me.

 

Today, I had to drive back to Evergreen to get my actual CDL'they weren't open yesterday. The gal at the DPS took my third-party form, snapped yet another pic and lightened my wallet by $53. I joked with her and said that they had more pictures of me than my family did. She thought that was pretty funny. I've been in Alabama a little over one year and I've had my picture taken for a license probably four times now I think.

On my way back from the DPS, I stopped at the house to grab my long-form medical and drug test, and headed over to Pierce National'a local company. I told Jeff in the Safety dept. that I passed the road test and asked him for the keys to my truck... LOL... not. He had me fill out an application where I found out I'm not all that good at remembering dates. Strangely enough though, I remembered the address to PST Vans. I guess I filled out enough Trip Paks when I drove for them, that the address was burned into memory.

I filled out my job history to the best of my poor recollection and took it back into Jeff for review. He got my DAC out of the file and looked it over... hmm... seems like none of the places I ever drove for bothered to let USIS know that I existed. On one hand, nobody put any BS on there, but on the other, I had no proof that I've ever set foot in a truck other than my road test. He tried to Google 'PST Vans' and got nothing'they were swallowed up by U.S. Xpress in 1998. The other company I drove for was still around, but I was having a little disagreement with them when I left in 1996. I was honest and told him that NTB might not give me a glowing review.

Before I left his office, he asked me to see what I could find as far as proof that I actually drove for PST, just in case NTB wouldn't verify I had two years experience. I came back home, fired up my laptop and looked up the phone number to U.S. Xpress. Miracle of all miracles, they answered the phone in a record two rings... with only one number to press to talk to an actual person. Much better than PST used to be! I explained to gal on the other end that I was a former PST driver and I needed to verify that the dates that I was employed with PST. She was unsure if they had any records from that long ago and forwarded the call to someone else.

After a minute, Adam... or Aaron.... someone came on the line anyhow. I explained again and he asked me for my SSN. I gave it to him'click... click... click... "Yep, we have you on file." I was amazed.

Meanwhile, Jeff had called U.S. Xpress for verification and they told him he had to go to a third-party site, pay $7.95 and they'd tell him that I worked there. He called me up and told me that they did not pay for employment verifications, but that if I wanted to get it myself, that would help speed things up.

A few clicks later, and my credit card $7.95 lighter, I had my employment verification from PST Vans. Whew! Found out though, that I didn't work there as long as I thought I did'one month shy of two years. Ahh well. Verification in hand, I ran it back over to Pierce but Jeff had already gone home for the day.

Just for grins, I decided to call NTB and see what they said. I gave the gal in human resources my SSN'click... click... click... "Yep, your date was blah blah blah... and it says you voluntarily resigned." Good deal'didn't sound like they were going to play vindictive games.

Now it's a waiting game... tick tock, tick tock...

 

Thank you Ducks and Native Dancer.... and oops, almost forgot LadyTrucker99... didn't see you way up there.

It's really getting down to the wire for me. I need to get on the road ASAP—I got a pile of unpaid bills and everything is scheduled to be shut off. I stuck it out at Wally World for too long, hoping for full-time. However, at $8.45 an hour, they don't really pay enough to keep the lights on—they consider 32 hours a week a full-time job.